Were you allowed to go to funerals when you were a kid ?

When my grandmother died my boys decided to play at her funeral, just a couple of Hymns. There was a quartet of brass instruments. They stood outside the chapel and started to play. My husband came up to them and said, "You better play softly boys, you don't want to wake the old girl up" He was just trying to take the tension out of the air. Well one of the boys couldn't stop laughing and set the others off too. I was just glad my mother never heard what happened.
 
I went to the funerals of my maternal grandmother, two uncles and both of my paternal grandparents. As a child, it was a somewhat traumatizing experience for me. I dreaded going to funerals.

I really didn't know how to feel about it, but I guess it prepared me as an adult to host an open casket memorial for my father when he passed away. That was the way he and his extended family would have wanted it. I was actually relieved that my mother had chosen to donate her body to science when she passed away. I am planning on doing the same. I find open casket funerals somewhat "ghoulish".
 

Had to go to every funeral. The saddest one was when my paternal grandfather died and it was the first time in my life, I saw my father cry. Organ music always makes me think of that and brings a tear to my eye.
 
I was required to go to every funeral of family. I had over a hundred relatives of extended family. Luckily, none of them died when I was very young.

I didn't want to go. There wasn't a choice.

Since I had such a different experience, I'm fascinated that anyone would want to attend a funeral.
 
When I was four, I recall being shooed away from my grandfather’s casket when I tried to peek in. In those day, the body was kept in the farm house.

Later I remember my uncle’s funeral. He was killed by lightning. I was about 12.
 
I wasn’t taken to viewings or funerals until my maternal grandmother died when I was ten. It was my first viewing of a dead body and I was initially scared, but adapted. I think I was more horrified over the fact that she had been found dead in her bathtub of a heart attack. When my mother went with me to clear out grandma’s apartment, seeing the death tub was a Stephen King-esque experience.

Many kids are prepped for encountering death by experiencing the death of a pet. Lord knows, I had many goldfish swim over to the Rainbow Bridge by then. Some died the day after being brought home from a carnival! 🐟

I also had a relative I never met who died on the toilet! I guess that Elvis went that way, too, but hope that I don’t… 🚽🙀
 
I have been to many viewings but the first one was my grandmother when I was about 6 years old. I was a little nervous about seeing a dead body but my mother tried to force my brother, about 3 years old to kiss her in the casket- I can still hear my brother screaming over that, he was so afraid. I brought it up to him one day but he had no memory of that at all.

The worse viewing was a neighbors son, only four years old, and then ,when my husband's father died, we were the only family who had brought our children to the viewing. My husband's siblings came over to me and said their kids had never been to a viewing-some were teenagers. I think children should be at viewings for a close relative.

I know someone in his 40s by now ,who is still afraid to see a dead body. When his grandfather died, he didn't go to it, but they had to shut down the viewing anyhow. I was shocked to see what happened....two of his female relatives actually started to curse and punch each other. One was the 40 year old's mother. The fight was over money.
 
I don’t know of any family member who died when I was a kid. Death seemed just awful to me when I was young and a mystery since I hadn’t experienced it. Just driving by a graveyard I’d be overwhelmed with sadness thinking of families standing by teary as each grave received its body.

Now it seems very natural being a part of what it is to be alive. I didn’t choose it but am grateful to have had the opportunity.

My mother and a cousin each had an open casket service. Felt bad for my mother as she hated being looked at, always darting out of the picture in home movies.
 
I've gone to many, many funerals over the decades starting from when I was a child. I don't remember the age I was when I went to the first one.

So sorry that the first deceased person you saw was your mother HD. May she R.I.P. did they at least make her up for the funeral? I asked this because I would allowed to see the progress on my mother and either give my approval or tell them what else they needed to do to make her look nice.

@jujube that is one helluva story! That fool mistress should have snuck in the back of the church and kept her mouth shut. 😆
 
I was about 13 when my grandmother, a bad diabetic, died. I went to the wake and the funeral. There was a question about her birthday, the towns weren't as scrupulous as today. Well, they found it. They told my grandfather that "his woman" was 8 years older than she told him. I was sitting at the wake, because I was the temp designated family member. My grand father walked to his wife of 50 years, and said, " Woman, you lied to me. You lied to me!". I cracked up.
 
In my experience, after the initial shock of the death and sadness of the funeral the event could actually be somewhat enjoyable. There was delicious food supplied by family and neighbors. You got to see cousins you may have not seen often. And usually there was a lot of retelling of old family stories and history.
Sorta of an attitude that life can be short and unexpectedly painful , or long and well lived. Either way, we carry on.
 
I come from a large extended family and began going to wakes and funerals at the age of 9. It hasn't stopped since. I don't mind the ritual. I enjoy seeing family members I would not see except at wakes/funerals. But it is sad. I have always been okay with it because it was introduced at such an early age that it seemed like part of the growing up rites.
 

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